Hammering Down Your Hydration Plan with Hammer Nutrition Founder Brian Frank - Part 2

Brian Frank: Experts are saying, well, you know, there's a lot of research out there that says, you know, high sodium diet are co contributors or directly contribute to a lot of diseases that Americans suffer from high blood pressure, heart disease and so many others. But if you're an athlete and you're going to do a triathlon or a marathon or whatever, salts your friend, the more, the better load up. I just can't understand this kind of disconnect, this whole conflict where it's bad for your health, but it's good for your performance if you're an athlete. Kevin Chang: Hello and welcome to the RaceMob podcast. This is episode number 59. I'm Kevin entrepreneur technology and fitness nerd. And I'm joined by the head coach of RaceMob and master motivator, the incomparable Bertrand Newson. Hey, there RaceMob crew. Before we get into this episode, we wanted to let you know that we're running a hydration challenge through the end of this month. You're going to be eligible to win a hammer nutrition prize pack. Thanks to our good friend, Brian, who's featured in this episode. As we talk about in this episode, the best thing that you can do to be hydrated on race date is to stay hydrated in your daily life. And for many of us that means drinking upwards of a hundred ounces a day. Now we don't want you to go from zero to a hundred right away. But that's where this challenge is extremely important. All we want you to do is drink 16 ounces of water. When you wake up and start being mindful of your hydration strategy throughout the day. Go to RaceMob dot com slash hydration for your daily chance to win this prize pack. Now into this episode where Brian really dives into his detailed race day, fueling and hydration strategy. Including what to do if you like the flavored water and what should you, if you don't like flavored water. We dive into his recovery protocol and a recent sodium study that he says is a total game changer. Plus there's a supplement that he's extremely excited about. And after chatting with Brian, I went directly to hammer to go try it myself. Plus got some for my dog. What is the supplement? Well, you're just going to have to tune in, to find out! All the show notes can be found online at RaceMob dot com slash podcast. Without further ado here's the rest of our conversation. So let's talk a little bit about water consumption. Let's talk a little bit about calorie consumption and when you're on a longer run. So when you're on a run or a triathlon, that's over two hours, that's, you know, we have Ironman, you know, Western states just happened earlier this week. And I think that the, the prevailing knowledge or the prevailing information is that when you go pass two hours, four hours, six hours, that you should have consistent nutrition strategy, that it shouldn't be, you know, totally off the rail when you're, when you're starting to go even longer distances. So talk to us a little bit about, I guess, water consumption, calorie consumption. How might one go about strategizing how to do that and especially for longer distances. Brian Frank: Sure. Well, first thing is with fluid. We're not camels. We can't store large volumes of fluid. So we really have to work on being effective hydrators every single day. You know, we know from science and studies that are out there you know, a decrease of 1% of body weight due to perspiration fluid loss will decrease performance by something in the neighborhood of 5% to 7%. 2% you're in the 10 to 15% reduction of performance beyond 2%, you start approaching 3%. You're talking about, you know, potentially fatal situations. So dehydration is certainly something that we want to be aware of and concerned. And after all, this is one of the huge areas of management when it comes to ultras, because you cannot replace what you're losing. It's never a one for one it's managing the deficit. Okay. So the point is, is most athletes live their daily life in a state of dehydration. And then they try to super hydrate for 24, 48, 72 hours before a known and obvious dehydration event is going to occur. And unfortunately that attempt at loading actually helps to create a self fulfilling prophecy. The body doesn't know what to do with all of this fluid that's suddenly coming in. So it just passes it right through, fills the bladder and you eliminate it. When you're eliminating that you're also eliminating your precious electrolytes. So we see people starting race day. I mean a couple years ago, was it a Northern national championship, one of the pro women was cramping up 30 minutes into the race because it was hot. It was dry. She had been attempting to load. She had flushed all of the electrolytes out of her body. And so she starts the race and her body's like, well, what now? So instead of, so the idea is, is again this, and we'll get to the same theme with regard to sodium in a minute, just know what you consume. Okay. Again, just like, we're not afraid to give people numbers, just like we give you the numbers for protein. I'm going to tell you the same thing. Okay. If you're not consuming at least half to three quarters of an ounce of fresh water per pound of body weight daily, exclusive of what you use when you're training and exclusive of all other beverages, tea, coffee, whatever. You're dehydrated. Okay. Now we'd like to see you get to, you know, something in the neighborhood of that three quarters mark, but most people are below half an ounce per pound. So if you're not there, the first thing to do is make an assessment. What do you realistically consume today in terms of fresh water? You know, look, if it's 20 ounces, fine increase that gradually to 30 to 40, to 50 to 60, because even an improved going from 20 to 40 is an improvement. We're looking for incremental, sustainable improvements, and we don't want to do it overnight. The body takes several weeks to climatize and adjust to higher fluid volumes coming in. This is a really important exercise that's worth doing because everything in our body works better when we're hydrated our muscles, connective tissue, organs, everything functions better when we're not dehydrated. Okay. So be honest if you've got a race this weekend, if you're racing on Sunday. Okay. Today and tomorrow, you can't do anything about changing your hydration status. Okay. Just maintain what you've been doing. And on race day, just don't exceed that 20 to 24 ounces an hour of intake because there's no way your body can absorb that it's going into the bladder. So I hear, you know, guys being like, Yeah. I was drinking two bottles, three bottles an hour on the bike. Well, no wonder you cramped up like a maniac five miles or three miles into the run. You just over hydrated yourself for the entire bike on the iron. And so now you're in trouble and unless you're consuming massive amounts of electrolytes to offset. Okay, so we got to have controlled fluid intake during events. And again, if your hydration, your daily hydration, isn't ideal. All right. Work on that. After this race and work on that on a daily basis, again, as a goal setting. I usually, I try to get people to find a measuring device that they like, like a 32 ounce Nalgene container or something like that. I usually have a 16 ounce pint glass on my desk and, you know, I'm trying to brain that like five, six times during the course of the day. But at any rate, that's the idea with fluid intake is controlled and measured in heat stress environments. Now last weekend at Ironman quarter lane it was 106 degrees. was 140 degrees on the page. I'm on the big 10 mile climb. So people were obviously on the limit. You can drank all the water, you can you've drunk 24 ounces. What do you do when your core temperature is still rising and too high and you need to cool down. Well, you got some three choices. You can pour water over your head, or, you know, on your body. If you have access to it, you can take water and put it in your mouth and swish it around and spit it out. Or you can slow down. Those are your three choices and really your only choices trying to keep pushing through and not addressing the core temperature problems and everything else. It's just, it just comes to ruin later. Bertrand News: Question for you. Brian consuming fluids during your actual race or during your training electrolyte preference or water preference. If we're looking at something, you know, over eight, 10 plus miles, where you going to be out there for, again, a blue collar athlete, I'm not elite. But consuming water, if they're a heavy sweater or, you know, are they sweating on electrolytes and then taking a more water on their own, are they diluting their system even more and making them more prone to cramping? Or should they have some form of electrolyte, a Hammer product? Brian Frank: So a fit, a climatized athlete. And when I say fit, I mean, you know, if they're doing a 5k, they've been doing enough running to be able to do that. They should not really require large amounts of supplemental electrolytes. Until, and unless they're going out for three hours or more. Now you mentioned some other complicating factors high volume sweat rate. And this is if we want to dovetail this into the sodium side of the, of the equation we can. But I, I think, again, the point is, is if a person's going for a 30, 60, 70 minute run. Normally, you know, you would want a modicum of calories, maybe a hundred calories. And it would depend on what your logistics were, whether you have access to fluids or you're going to be running self-contained. And the other thing is to consider is what is your fueling style preference as far as do you like to drink drinks or do you want to drink water? Because for me that that's going to help me decide on what I'm gonna recommend to someone. So for instance, I'm a water drinker. Okay. Literally if I didn't need calories or anything else, I mean, I would literally just drink plain water all day, every day. And that's what I do on the bike. And so I developed the Hammer. gel and the sustained energy and the perpetuum all to be used in a concentrated form. So you would only need a couple ounces an hour to supply your caloric needs, thus, allowing you to drink water primarily for your hydration. Now, I don't know what the statistics are because I've never gone and done a big poll on it and what. But my seat of the pants hunch tells me that it's about 50 50. Just like it's about 50 50 with magazine readers. You know, people who still read magazines, half of them read them back to front and the other half read in front to back There's it seems like about half of the audience, half of the people out there are drink drinkers, talk to athletes all the time. They're like, Yeah, warm water in my bottle. I'm not touching that. It's got to have some flavor to it. It's got to, you know, if it, if it doesn't have something to help me get it down, I'm just not doing it. So that person, we always want to give them some flavored beverage to drink. So again, like you were saying on the shorter run where maybe not a lot of calories are needed they just take a gel before they go out and maybe they bring a small water bottle or a flask or a hydration vest that's got, say some fizz, you know, like the electrolyte tablet with the grape or grapefruit flavor or something like that. It's nice. It's nice flavored. And it gives them something to look forward to when they go to take a sip or whatever, and it'll supply some electrolytes. Now, when you get well beyond the one hour or two hour workouts, and we start talking about ultra. That's where we want to get into that hourly rhythm of fluid intake, caloric intake, and electrolyte intake. And again, we can set up a fueling system for somebody doing an iron man that is either having them drinking water all the time on the bike and the run, and only using concentrated calorie and electrolytes. Or if they want to be a drink drinker, they can have their calories, their fluid, and their electrolytes all in there, bottles and roll like that. So this create some confusion amongst athletes. You know, when they look at our product line, I mean, you have so many products. And how do I know when to use perpetuum versus sustained energy versus heat versus Hammer gel? And then that's usually when we say, well, if you call us, we'll be happy to explain it to you. And help to discover whether you're that water drinker or you're that drink drinker. And then, you know, which so certain suite of products would be ideal for you. Scott: I just want to mention that I did exactly just that Brian and I spoke to Tyler. So Tyler helped me with my training. I did a half marathon this past Saturday, and I wasn't sure what if I should take perpetuum or do I just need something heed? And we talked about it and. He he recommended the fizz drinks because I did like a, something, a little bit of a taste, and that worked for me very well. But Tyler was so educational and informative that I just loved that. I just could, he didn't just take my order. He helped me decide what to buy and it was more of a, not a salesman, but he was like a coach. He was my nutrition coach for the 10 minutes that we spoke. And I won't forget it for a long time. Brian Frank: That's awesome. Scott, I appreciate you bringing that up and you know, it's, it's, it's important to me. Because again, back in the day, everybody talked to me, right. And I could, I could help each athlete. To decide and figure out what was going to work best for them and obviously through growth that's just not possible anymore. And so it's, you know, despite technology and automation you know, w I just refuse to do that, you know, to just have a call center or an order processing or whatever. Now keep in mind. Now we got the website, you know, so we we're really going into the business. That's kind of really separating into two very distinct channels as far as old school and new school. You know, people want an anonymous interaction with the website. They want to read the information they want to order the products and everything they can do that. It's a great website. You know, we're shipping the order the same day. It's getting to you in two days. And, and if you want that type of shopping experience, we can do that. But if you're a little bit more retro and, or, you know, you just would rather have somebody kind of help you to navigate this and cut to the chase, this is why we have the 800 number at the big, at the top of our homepage and on every page of our website, because we actually do want to talk to people. You're not going to get an auto attendant and you're not going to get a run around and you're not going to get a, you know, I just work here. I just take orders. No, I mean, Tyler, he's a dad and a husband and everything else, but he's also serious endurance. You know, he rides his bike to, and from work every day. You know, he does these crazy back country, wilderness multi-day wilderness hikes and stuff. And this is who you're going to talk to, you know, now of course, if you would've said, Hey, Hey, I want to talk to Steve. You know, I need to, I need help with my, you know, double century fueling or my race across America fueling plan, or I want to do a state crossing record, you know, and I need somebody to set something up. Or if somebody wants to talk to me, I mean, I was talking to Don Bergen yesterday from Pennsylvania you know, as a legacy, you know, 33 year client. So we're here, we're here doing what we do and we're here to help people. And we're trying to get this information across to you by whatever means electronic or analog that suits you. But more to the point is this information, you know, like what you find in our five secrets of success book and elsewhere on our website, it's not just self-serving to try to get you to buy more of our products. Again, less is best, right? I'm telling people consume fewer calories and I'm a person who sells calories because I'm way more concerned with you, again, like Coach "B" was saying, these people are, this is not even an, a race. This might be a bucket list race. Okay. I mean, I want you to do that with a smile on your face and no GI distress and no cramps and worse. You know, it's challenging enough, but you want to be able to just enjoy the experience and be in the moment, you know, and Yeah. it's hard, but you know, we all know how good those endorphins feel and how that sense of satisfaction cannot be duplicated that you get when you cross that finish line and you achieve that. So that's what, that's what I've been trying to do. And, you know, people buy my products and they keep coming back and buying them because we're concerned with their wellbeing, their health, their longevity, their performance. And that's all we're going to try to do is explain that to them, educate them how we can and provide them with the products that they will benefit from. Not as much as we can sell them, just the ones that they actually need to do what they want to do. And usually it involves some discussions about putting the fork down, you know, just eating less. I kind of jokingly talk about Americans having fork and mouth disease. And to your point about, you know, in Dr. French has already been talking about this and we're going to continue to talk about it. Because he's a board certified bariatric physician. Okay. He is extensively trained in dealing with obesity And diabetic patients. But the amazing thing is, is that the healthy fit athletes that he sees, oftentimes their blood work looks like that obese diabetic person. When you're looking at those at the, at the inflammation markers and they're showing signs, then they're showing, developing fatty liver disease and they're developing insulin resistance. And they're being, you know, being diagnosed as being pre-diabetic. And yet this guy has 5% body fat what's going on here. I mean the medical world has been telling us up until just a couple of years ago that obesity was the only indicator or precursor to diabetes. So we got all these skinny athletes now that are diabetic because they fried their pancreas from mainlining, sugar, and sugar, like carbs all day, every day for decades. Kevin Chang: And I guess, I mean, that's a good segue to talk about the ingredients that are in, you know, your products because the calories, you know, we talked about a hundred calories, 120 calories, an hour, 120 to 180 calories, all calories aren't created equal, right? We're not telling people to go eat a Snickers bar every, every hour. We're telling them, you know, complex carbohydrates, probably protein in there, if you're going for a little bit longer. So talk to us a little bit about what types of calories people should be consuming when they're out on their runs or out on their endurance events. Brian Frank: Well, again, pivoting from the mindset of, you know, food is your best medicine and the qualities of the calories that you put in your body matters all the time. There's no free calories. Okay. So we know, and we've been talking about refined sugar being the problem in our daily diet, but sadly, almost every sports nutrition product is fundamentally based on sugar. It's the primary or the only ingredient, supplying calories in most sports drinks, chews gels, et cetera. So, you know, I've always struggled with registered dieticians and, you know, people with all these degrees and initials after their name, who will say, Hey, you know, you're an athlete, you're running a marathon, you know, just make life easier on your body. Just start with simple sugar. And then it doesn't have to do a lot of breakdown and conversion to get it to glycogen. So, you know, Skittles m&ms, and again, if we've seen this you know, for decades at every ultra running event, you go to, you look at, you, go out to one of these aid stations and you're like, did a supermarket, did the candy section of a supermarket just explode out here, know what's happening? There's chocolate chip cookies, there's brownies, there's Skittles and M&M's. You know, and watermelon and fruit and bananas and what, but, you know, people, they, you know, they're not feeling so great to begin with mosey up to one of these aid stations. And like, I know if I eat all of this stuff, I'll, I'll, it'll make me feel way better and I'll be back on you know, on pace running again. Not so much. Scott: No gummy bears then. Brian Frank: Yeah. Right, right. So, so it's complex carbohydrates. You know, and, and people will, you know, with some validity or some basis criticize our products for being corn maltodextrin based. It's a manufactured carbohydrate, no doubt. I'm not necessarily a fan. Like I've always told people I don't go home and have a bowl of maltodextrin for dinner. You know, I don't sit on the couch and watching TV, you know, sipping maltodextrin. But when I'm exercising, it is absolutely. The lesser of evils when it comes to a primary fuel source complex carbohydrates versus sugar. So this is why our products are made with the most complex cause there's different types of maltodextrin, some are shorter chain length and act more like sugar and some are not. So we're using the longest chain length, carbohydrates, multi dextrins to specifically minimize the insulin response that is going to happen as a result of the imposition of those calories into the body. Then of course, for the ultra applications through my own experience and reading I believe that it's the garbage in garbage out kind of environment where if we're not consuming any protein or, our body's going to be more reticent to burn those things. Protein specifically, we do not want it to burn because the only place we store protein in our body is lean muscle mass. And we work really hard to get that muscle mass and we don't really want to use it for energy. Second of all is again, the fat. We want to encourage the body to burn fat as much as, you know, 65, 70% of our calories during an ultra sure can and should be coming from fat. But as I said before, the interesting thing is, is the introduction of sugar, calories, sugar carbohydrates. Not only increases it significantly, our electrolyte needs to get that sugar to pass through the stomach but it also that insulin spike that comes with the sugar is also inhibiting fat-burning. So even though that, you know, that flat Coke or, you know, one, something like that, you know, mile 80 and an ultra sounds really appealing. Besides the fact that you're going to fall off a cliff and about 20 minutes, energy-wise it's going to inhibit fat burning for a number of hours. So this is why we want to really focus on the complex carbohydrates, a modicum of protein and fat coming in, and just mainly avoiding the sugar until, and unless, like I tell, I've told people for decades in Ironman, if you get yourself to the last 10 K on program and you just can't resist that flat Coke or that Gatorade anymore, you can do that, make that switch at that point. But it's a one-way street. You're going to ride that train all the way to the finish line. And you got to keep sipping that Coker Gatorade every five to 10 minutes. Or, you know, you'll be a mile away from the finish line and not getting a lot closer. Kevin Chang: I love that. I love that. Yeah. And I mean, it makes a lot of sense, the complex carbohydrates, because your body can break it down relatively quickly. But then the actual process of getting into, you know, your cells takes a lot longer. So, you know, your body isn't distressed when breaking down that complex carb but you actually can utilize that energy for a longer period of time. And then the amino acids, or, you know, the, the protein, but sometimes I think either branch chain, amino acids, or you know, with some, some, some form of immuno acids can help you there with with energy utilization. And then fats or oils, so I've heard MCT oils or ketone esters for some people have worked fairly well in terms of oils or, or fat utilization stuff. Talk to us a little bit about, I guess, recovery. What are some of the things that you recommend for, for recovery and for after exercise? Brian Frank: Absolutely. Recovery is very much under appreciated, especially by younger athletes. And triathletes in general seem to be notorious for focusing on training and not, you know, oh my recovery day. Yeah. That's when I run errands and, you know, go like a madman, you know, doing other things all day. No, you in a train hard, you got to recover hard. So you know, what that looks like is a lot of different things, but it's really valuing and emphasizing recovery. I mean, I, when I'm on a hard training schedule and I'm training hard six days, I mean that I relished that recovery day because I mean, literally I'm going to do nothing. I'm going to read a book. I'm going to sit on the couch. I'm going to have my legs up. I'm going to maybe run a compact CMS or something like that. I mean, I am talking nothing. But mainly the is okay, right after you're done with your workout, you have this window of opportunity where your body is most receptive to receiving nutrients, to commence, repairing, and rebuilding and getting ready for the next occurrence of this stressful event. So when you finish your workout is when you want to start recovering, not dilly dallying around. So, you know, if you're going traveling someplace to work out I always bring with me a bottle of water and like a separate bottle with a scoop of whey protein or a couple scoops of recovery. Then literally, I mean, I'll stop peddling, get off the bike before I even unbuckle my helmet strap or take off my shoes. I'm drinking my recovery drink. Okay. And then I'm in no hurry. Now I can, you know, shoot the breeze with, you know, guys I've been training with or, you know, drive back home and prepare a meal or whatever. So the first thing is, is when, if you really look at it, when most people allow 60 to 90 minutes to pass from the time that they actually stop running or turning panel or whatever, until they're actually getting to a good quality macronutrient recovery meal. And that's a serious compromise to be making. Because recovery has just slowed inhibited, same thing with rehydration. Everything takes longer when you don't start it immediately at the conclusion of the dehydration or the stress. So take it seriously, do something immediately after now, keep in mind if you have the ability to plan your workouts and you have someone who cooks for you and you can literally like come off that run or come in from the bike ride, take off your clothes and sit down and be eating, you know, baked chicken and brown rice and steamed vegetables within 10 or 15 minutes of getting off the bike, awesome. Do that. That tastes way better than a serving of recovery, right. Or whey protein. But for most of us, that's not a reality. We're gonna, it's gonna be a while before we get to that next meal. So again, the recovery, you got to keep up the daily protein intake. Like we talked about, you want to be doing timely introduction of macronutrients, both protein and carbohydrates. Again, not chocolate milk. You know, give yourself, you know, Avocado nuts. You know, if you want to go plant-based or have a protein shake ready to go. And then, you know, get to that meal though within an hour or so. And again, training days, our training days, rest days are rest days. So I would rather schedule, I try to run my errands and do my other busy work. I do that on my training days, not my rest day. Bertrand Newson: Great advice. Love it. Brian Frank: Thank you. Bertrand Newson: Saving this part of our, all of the podcasts, but this will be replayed for many of our athletes. Brian Frank: Right. Well, and then, like I said, you know, we normally through age, we sort of learn to appreciate recovery and respect it more and focus more on it. And as I'm telling, you know, these juniors, these teenagers that I'm working with, the sooner you get on top of this stuff, the sooner you have a VA advantage over 80% of your competition who are not taking recovery seriously, who are not taking hydration seriously are not taking their diet seriously. You know, if you're in a super competitive, you know, lower age group, you know, 30, 30, 4, 35, 39 you know, you can't, you can't leave anything to chance. Kevin Chang: Well I mean, there's plenty more though. We'd, we'd love to get into, but I do want to be respectful of your time and make sure that you know, we let you get back into your day. Obviously, I mean, some of the things that I love about Hammer is the emphasis that you put on the ingredients that you create making sure that you're, you're producing only the highest quality ingredients, and that yeah, that's, you're always a staple of the community and the, the running community in and of itself. So we always see Hammer out in so many different events all across the country. We know that live events are starting to come back and that we will hopefully be seeing you sponsoring a lot more live events and a lot more events all, all across the nation. So just wanted to say, yeah, I, and I don't know if you have anything to say about either of those subjects because I think that is fantastic. Brian Frank: No. Thank you, Kevin. I have a lot to say about all of that, unfortunately, or fortunately, in case I'm boring people. I'm not in a super big hurry if you want to touch on sodium real quickly. And, but, and, and getting back to your point, you know, I've always supported the most sports that we're active in, you know, and unfortunately we do it in a different way. So oftentimes people will say, oh, you don't support us because you don't advertise in runner's world, man magazine. And you know, I say, well, you know, how much an ad in a magazine costs and do you know, how many events I can sponsor with that same spend? So, and you know, we're not at the Boston marathon, I've never done an expo at Boston or New York marathon. And it's not because I don't want to, but it's too big. It's too expensive, you know. Now the BNC races where you've got, you know, race directors are doing this out of a sense of altruism, and again, wanting to support a community These race directors are not getting rich. You know, and, and so this is why, you know, we're going out a lot of the other nutrition companies. They say, if you don't have at least 500 participants in your event, don't even call us some of them. Won't talk to you if it's under a thousand. And I reckon, you know, these hundred, 200, 300 person trail runs and things we do. I mean, these are, this is where we want to be. So we always support these sports and these people who make the sports happen, but from a grassroots perspective. So people say, I've, I've never heard of Hammer before I read all these magazines. I've never heard of your product before. And I'm like, well, clearly you don't race. Because if you went to, if you were into a trail running event or a triathlon or a mountain bike race, or any, a gravel race or whatever in this country, you would probably see us. So, you know, that's, that's something that's very important in a very big part of the brand and always will be. And so I, I appreciate the fact that that's people recognize that. I think the athletes tend to recognize that I know the race directors really appreciate it. And so, Yeah, we will sponsor think this year we're on track to get back up to about 600 events. I think, I think in 2019, I think we sponsored something like it was 80 plus hundred mile or 50 or a hundred mile or longer trail running events. So, but again, but you know, we don't sponsor Western states because we just can't write that check. It's a big check. Kevin Chang: If you like our podcast and sign up for our newsletter, where we give you weekly tips on how to run your best race and have fun in the process. Just go to RaceMob.com and sign up today. Brian Frank: And so anyways sodium, the other deleterious substance, the other evil substance in our diet. Experts are saying, well, you know, there's a lot of research out there that says, you know, high sodium diet. Are co contributors or directly contribute to a lot of diseases that Americans are suffer from high blood pressure, heart disease and so many others. But if you're an athlete and you're going to do a triathlon or a marathon or whatever, salts your friend, the more, the better load up. And this is again where I've always just, you know, from my holistic background and growing up, not eating salt and not even having it on the table. I just can't understand this kind of disconnect this whole conflict where it's bad for your health, but it's good for your performance if you're an athlete. Well, in truth, it's not. And in truth, the athletes that eat high sodium diets are the ones who have high perspiration rates, because that's what the body does. To survive when you're poisoning it, it has to eliminate the poison as quickly as it possibly can. So our body, the most perfect machine ever has a complete sodium regulating system. We have a hormone dedicated to sodium function and a sodium pump that will recirculate sodium throughout our body to tolerate heat stress when we need to. However, it's got a breaker, just like the electricity in your house, it's got a breaker switch. If you dump too much salt in that breaker goes off and the sodium pump shuts down and the body just goes into survival mode, which is jettison, jettison. So perspiration increases, urine frequency increases, dehydration accelerate. So it's, again, counterintuitive, you can't even believe how many athletes I've talked to who have just come through an absolutely miserable miserable event, just cramping and salt stains on their clothing and their helmet straps and their skin. And their conclusion is, ah, I didn't drink enough. I didn't consume enough sodium next time I'm going to do even more. And then it gets to the danger point and then it gets to, you know, going off and getting an IVand know, and going to the medical tent instead of crossing the finish line. So in this in endurance news weekly last week, and in the next issue of endurance news and 1 26, that'll be in home on the first week. I have a long, a feature article in there called the sodium war is over. And we won because through our, my work with Wayne Taylor racing in the Daytona prototype, AMSA cars that race in the 24 hours of Daytona and 12 hours of Sebring they have amazing technology and budgets. And they have a driver science program and they've partnered with a company called CoreSite that has doing military applications and what, but basically these put these patches on and it measures sodium concentration and perspiration rate in the athlete. So this is literally the first time that this has ever occurred, that there's been any kind of documentation on what happens to an athlete when they systematically reduce sodium in their daily diet. Can that affect their perspiration rate, their sodium concentrations in their fluid to allow them to better tolerate heat up until this year. It was just, just something we, we knew to be true. Anecdotally, we've seen it happen with hundreds, with thousands of athletes who have taken the salt out of their diet. Let me digress. One second. According to, and heart association, American college of sports medicine, and so on even high volume training athletes should not be consuming more than probably around 3,500 milligrams a day of sodium. The average American consumes, eight to 12 grams a day of sodium and athletes who have been encouraged to consume sodium freely are recording 15 to 20 grams a day of sodium intake. This is it's very problematic again, from a health standpoint long-term. So I start working with this race car driver. He's having a big problem because he's dehydrating and losing so much fluid in the car that he's not able to go and get back into the car when he needs to during a 24 hour event, because he's losing up to six pounds, a gallon of water he's losing in, you know, a 90 minute to 120 minutes stint in the car. And he had been talked to everybody and all the experts in everybody in the wisdom was just drink more, more salt. You know, you, your, your body doesn't naturally deal well with heat. You're just a naturally salty sweater. So you just need to try to. Which is pretty funny for a guy that grew up in Tampa, Florida, you'd think he'd you think he'd be okay in tolerating heat and what. But at any rate, again, this is a guy who is 100% and fully committed to being the best that he can be. And so I explained to him the process what's been going on, why he's been having the problems he's been having and what would happen if he rebuilt his diet and get rid of the sodium, get it down to two to three grams a day, eating all whole foods and avoiding the restaurant foods and packaged and processed foods. So luckily we had pre-test data. We had this pre-test data from let's see, 24 hours of Daytona, 2019, I believe where the fluid losses and the sodium losses were just massive were off the charts. We were able to go back this past January and retest. And what we saw was a 40% reduction in sodium concentration in the perspiration and a 30% reduction in perspiration rate. Kevin Chang: Oh, wow. And that's from diet change. That's from diet changes that he did leading up to the event. Brian Frank: Yes. I mean, he was, I would say fitness and most other factors were relatively the same. Ambient temperatures in the car and things like that are more or less the same, driving suit. Everything else is more or less the same. I mean, this was not an absolute double blind controlled study. But the before and after data is pretty significant. We're not talking about a couple of percent here. And more to the point is the anecdotal side of it. I mean, here's a guy who now is driving extra stents. Okay. And he's able to get in the car and go harder longer because. He's not hemorrhaging fluid and electrolytes so rapidly. So for him you know, the change in performance has been massive. And to the point of where now he's like, I'll drive an extra stint. You want me to stay in for a third stint or a fourth? No problem. I can do that. Whereas before they were like probably need to get out of the car. Now, lap times are degrading. Kevin Chang: That's incredible. I mean, it almost, to me, it's almost counterintuitive. I wouldn't have thought about that, you know, it was, and until this conversation, because I would have thought, oh, I'm a heavy sweater. You know, I always see the salt stains, all of that. I attend to cramp towards the end of races. So I need more salt, naturally. I need more salt. I should be having more solid. I should be eating more. So, and you're saying that potentially the opposite is true. That I'm a heavy sweater or that I may cramp it because I'm my natural diet is potentially too, too high in salt. And so cutting it back may see different results during these, these races. That's fantastic. That's really interesting. And yeah, I'm definitely gonna experiment with this. I think that's, that's fantastic. Yeah. Brian Frank: And I just want to circle back Coach "B" on, on couple of comments you've made and, and really hit this point home hard. Okay. It doesn't cost money to stop eating sugar and it doesn't cost money to stop eating. So for this blue collar athletes, you know? Yeah, they're not going out and buying all the most expensive sports, nutrition, and supplements and what they're trying to make do with the food they've got an oh and the resources they have. And my point is, is this is a way to reduce your food budget. Okay. Because packaged and processed foods cost so much more per calorie than do potatoes and carrots and zucchini and green beans and you know, chicken. And so if, and if you start with all those whole foods and you prepare them yourself simply you don't get the salt, you don't get the sugar. And you know, you're, you're spending significantly less on, on your total food. Bertrand Newson: Thank you for that, for making that point home. One other item, we talked about sodium, we've talked about water. We talked about some fantastic Hammer products, caffeine in relation to performance. Well, I know I'm kind of throwing that later into our conversation, but if you have any, any thoughts you'd like to expand on. Kevin Chang: Being in it. And then after that CBD. CBD! Brian Frank: All right. Caffeine is an effective ergogenic aid or natural performance enhancer, but only if one abstains from it entirely for at least four to six weeks. Basically. I mean, four weeks or more. It's totally completely flushed out of your system. Your body is not recognizing or compensating for it. Okay. So in that scenario, that's when it would offer the most performance enhancement. But that's also when you would be apt to have the most side effects regarding the diuretic component. Because your body is not used to dealing with it. And all of a sudden, whoa, the stimulants coming in. Okay. Let's get rid of it and that's would precipitate a diuretic response. So it can hell it can exacerbate dehydration in that type of a situation. So I might not go like fasting on caffeine and try to do a mega dose of caffeine on a really hot day when you're really concerned about dehydration is your main limiting factor. Okay, but the reality is, is most of us consume caffeine on a daily basis. You know, I mean, I have, I have two cups of coffee every single morning. So, so our body becomes accustomed and habituated to it. We don't get the ergogenic response from it and we don't get the real, the diarrhetic effect. I mean, if I drink three shots of espresso really quick, yeah. I'll have to pee like a race horse and you know, 30 or 40 minutes or so, but, but normally just with a normal coffee consumption, you don't, you don't get that effect so much. So I usually tell people, you know, it depends on, you know, what your habit is. If you just love that morning cup of Joe, is it worth going without that for two, four weeks or more before an event to try to get a bump, a 1% bump in performance? I don't know. But so that's yeah, caffeine is either. Use it every day and just don't even worry about it from a performance or a diarrhetic standpoint or use it strategically. And again, during ultras you know, again, the 24 hour drivers, they're using the caffeinated gel, they're using the tropical and the espresso gel in their bombs in the middle of the night, you know, instead Of just like, you know, huckleberry or something like that. And so again, during iron mans or during an ultra run caffeine, you know, component brought into the event midway or later on can definitely, definitely you know, really kind of help bring your mind back together and, you know, get you back on, get your game plan for sure. So you know, late, late and ultras during long ultras I don't, I don't have a problem with it. You know, we have a brand of coffee it's a, you know, nice boutique-y organic coffee. And we have, you know, there's a study that we're, we've published before and we're bringing it out again. That showed it was a 20 year study involving 20,000 people drinking coffee and essentially the more coffee the person drank, the less they died of everything. The group of coffee drinkers who drank six cups of coffee a day or more, had a 13% reduction in mortality from all causes the group drinking like two to three cups a day. I think they had like a six or 8% reduction in mortality. So I'm not one of those people. That's like coffee is bad. Stimulants are bad. Everything in moderation, including moderation. Occasionally Kevin Chang: Of course, we're not talking super sugary, creamy, you know, coffees and that sort of thing. I'm sure in that study, but probably, Brian Frank: I, you know, I don't know. I, it, the interesting thing was that it was both decaf and regular coffee drinkers and the, the, the decaf drinkers registered the same benefit. As the normal coffee drinkers. So after 20 years and 20,000 tracking, 20,000 people, I mean a multi-million dollar study, they had all these amazing results, but. they didn't know why. So they concluded that we need to do more research to understand why drinking coffee makes you live longer or die less. But it nonetheless you know, and, and again, to the sugar point, several organizations and communities suggest that we should try to limit our refined sugar intake daily to 50 grams, a little less than two ounces. Believe it or not, there's certain there's nutrition companies out there that recommend that you conserve consume 30 to 50 grams of sugar per hour while exercising, and then another 70 grams of sugar as soon as you're done. But that's another story for another day. But my point is, is if I'm going to limit myself this amazingly addictive substance that I crave constantly, if I'm going to limit myself to 50 grams a day, those better well count and not be some nappy sports drink or chomp or two or block or whatever. Right. So I drink coffee every day, but I'm not a connoisseur because I just can't drink it black. So, you know, half a teaspoon, about 15 grams of raw cane sugar goes into each of my two cups of coffee along with about a half an ounce of full cream non-pasteurized milk which has also a lot of sugar lactose and what? So those are, that's my, you know, Cheat. That's when I'm like, Okay. I'm knowingly, willingly consuming sugar right now. Other than that, I don't want to eat bread with high-fructose corn syrup in it or pasta or anything else. So choose your battles, decide, you know, what is that one sugar thing? That's just the most, your most favorite thing that you love the most? I don't know if it's a doughnut, if it's a pudding or ice cream or whatever, but Okay. That's it. That's the one thing that you're going to do, and you're going to do that occasionally, you know, like after you win a race or after you achieve a goal or, you know, once a month or once a week or something, that's less than you've been doing now, you're going to give yourself that reward. Scott: That's good advice. A donut after every marathon. Brian Frank: Exactly. And if you run a marathon every day, you can have a donut every day. Ok, and last and last, but not least CBD. So we started off the conversation talking about coenzyme Q 10. I mean, this was really this one micronutrient was really the, what started it all. This is what put me in, you know, got me into the business. This is what I was using with amazing results back in high school. And now we have athletes that are in their seventies and eighties and have been taking it daily for 30 years and are just amazing specimens. But rare, relatively, and compared to CBD coenzyme, Q 10 has a fairly limited range of benefits. Now they are, they are powerful in the cardiovascular and improving heart function and so on and so forth. But does co Q 10 do anything for sleep quality? Not really. Does it do anything for aches and soreness? Be mindful that I'm measuring my words very carefully. And I'm not saying certain things that are considered medical terms. So again, we were talking about people eating this sugary diet and that causes inflammation throughout the body tissue inflammation in the muscles, organs, everywhere, exercise and so forth causes that. So here's, my point is CBD basically covers the spectrum. It does amazing things for sleep quality, which it helps with our endocrine system function and our recovery. And I mean, I'm, you know, people are, I talked to people and they're like, I just took 10 milligrams of CBD for the first time last night and I haven't slept this well in 20 years. And I always talk about dream life, you know, with an endurance athlete. Okay. If you don't wake up in the morning able to recall. Vivid colorful dreams. Your sleep quality is not very good, and you're not getting this three hours, four hours that you need in that third stage REM deep REM when your hormone levels are going to come up and when your body's going to be doing all this, if repair. So again, back to recovery, man, if you're not sleeping well, you're having fitful restless sleep. You're getting up multiple times a night. You're not dreaming, boy, your recovery is out the window. So it's massive for sleep quality for aches and pains and the inflammation. And then for mood feelings, you know, these days more so than ever. And even before last year, the statistics are just scary. I mean, I think it's something, something in the neighborhood of 80% girls between the ages of 15 and 25 are experiencing significant anxiety and you know, are seeking help. And it's, and now it's in the whole population. Now everybody's now everybody's uneasy. And so, like I said, I haven't seen anything that's natural and effective with no side effects that can help people in those areas as well. So we're seeing the mainstreaming of CBD, you know, there's articles in health got calm and web MD, and, you know, our doctors are getting patients coming in pretty much on a daily basis saying, Hey, can I use CBD for this or that, or the other thing instead of this crazy prescription drug and the studies and the research, you know, that just continue to come out are just, are showing that. I mean, there's almost, I'm hard pressed to find an area of human health and wellbeing. That it doesn't have a positive impact on. And so my record, my reckoning is, is that, you know, CoQ 10 was, and still is to this day a revolutionary product. And of course over the past 30 years, thousands of studies have been done and have confirmed what we knew. And it's now the most widely used and prescribed product in the world, cardiovascular health and CBD is bigger. Unfortunately, it's the wild west out there, you know, and everybody's, everybody's got a brand and my farm, my uncle and my cousin and the guy down the street and the farmer's market. And you know, the cost per milligram ranges from, you know, where it should be at eight, 10, 12 cents to, I see products out there for 50 cents, 75 cents, as much as a dollar, a milligram. So buyer beware, you know, this is more so than ever. I mean, I've always told people when you're out on the market buying pro supplements, you know, not my brain. You know, you want to know that company. You want to know where they, you know, that they're reputable. And this is true. Double, triple, quadruple, true with CBD companies. You've got to check those boxes, you know, they need, it needs to be organically grown hemp. It needs to be you know, minimally processed. They need certificates of analysis for every batch showing purity, potency, lack of heavy metals, lack of THC, et cetera. And then again, like I said, you should be paying between eight and 12 cents a milligram. Because after all CBD and hemp is a commodity. I'm not going to say, you know, my CBD is better than that other legitimate brand of seeds. They're both the same. So once you get onto a level playing field where you're dealing with equal quality and purity and potency, now you're just talking about cost. You know, and it's really just, you know, and it should be 10 cents a milligram, and most people are getting really good benefits from around 25 milligrams today. And we also have to deal with the drug testing issue. This is why we specifically offer a broad spectrum, THC free formula because we have so many people in law enforcement, military medical industry that are all subject to testing as well as corporate. And so you know, we wanted to confirm, you know, do you really know if I take your CBD for several weeks or months at a time? And I get this random test. Am I going to pass or am I going to get fired? So we're uh, we're a little over 120 days plus into our test program. We involve three athletes who took 50 milligrams a day for the first 60 days. Our third test subjects who's going to continue progressing is at 200 milligrams a day. And we have at zero, zero parts per billion, we have zero positive response at illimited of detection of of one part per billion. So, and even the most the DOD test, the five panel Dio T tests that we're using. Doesn't register a positive response. As far as THC is concerned, unless you're over 15 parts per billion, so we're not even registering one. So my point is, is I can't speak for any other brand of CBD on the market, but if anyone listening, or if anyone knows anybody who's listening, who would like to use CBD for the benefits, but is concerned that they might not pass a drug test. We have the data that shows that that will not be the case. Kevin Chang: Well, I mean, that is incredible. And I think it's so important. As you've mentioned before that you really understand where your supplements are coming from, that you really, especially with CBD. You know, there's so many things that that need to be like added to it, make it bioavailable and make sure that you can that you can utilize it effectively. And there are so many horror stories, so many other companies that cut it with, you know, just, just terrible ingredients or don't put any actual CBD, or like you said, like, you know, could it still could be mixed with THC and other stuff. So you know, go to a trusted brands, go to a brand that, that really takes care of the ingredients of the raw ingredients that come into it. Right. Has it lab tested, make sure that make sure that, you know, everything is okay, bored when you're buying these products. And so, I mean, I think that is fantastic. And yeah, we encourage, we encourage our audience and, you know, when we send out the newsletters, we encourage our audience. You know, if you're going to try CBD for the natural benefits, both on the sleep side, the reduction in cortisol levels, because we're all living in this high stress time. especially out here in Silicon valley, in San Jose and whatnot, you know, it is stressful. It's like, you know, we're not, we're not, yeah. We're not in, you know, other parts of the country, you know, Whitefish, Montana, getting, getting away from some of the stuff. Right. And even, even even more so, so yeah, I mean, I think that it's really an interesting supplement that I'm going to start trying I've I've tested a little bit of it in the past and I'm gonna start trying it a little bit more. So that's awesome. Brian Frank: You know, I used it, we introduced it in August of 18. I'd been using it for about three years before that. And it was, it was so hard. It was. So you can't believe that, you know, cause the farm bill was delayed, you know, it didn't get actually signed until October of 18. That was the first time it had been delayed and allowed to expire. So we work, I was wanting to come to market earlier in the year in January and it's like, you have to wait, you have to wait. You cannot, you cannot. And it's like, you've got this amazing secret that you want to tell everybody and shout from the rooftops. But you have to, you have to wait. But so now you know, all this. After the farm bill water came out and removed it from the band list, which was also the other determining factor in us bringing it out. And so I would suggest if a person hasn't tried it yet, as long as you're dealing with legit, you know, companies offering real product and you're not paying an excessive price for milligram. Give it a try, give it a try because the, the benefits are so far reaching and wide ranging and they really do differ from person to person. So, yeah, it's good. Kevin Chang: Well just wanted to say thank you so much for jumping on this podcast with us. You know, we learned so, so much throughout this whole, I mean, we had you on for about two hours here, so learned so much for during this entire time. So just wanted to say thank you so much. I know that we'll have links up here for him or nutrition. Where can people reach out to you if they have questions? One to follow up with. Brian Frank: Well, we have a lot of contact options on our website, you know, you can contact me through there. You've got [email protected]. I got [email protected] for constructive or negative feedback or anything else. And then of course my email address directly is just [email protected]. Same address I've had since 95. It's apropos, I think. But yeah, absolutely. We'd love to hear from anybody that has questions. Or would like to read further, of course, as you mentioned, Hammond attrition.com the education tab on the top nav there has got the endurance library, the basic knowledge, the essential knowledge advanced knowledge. So yeah, I mean, again, empowered athletes is what we're looking for. You know, we, we know that when an athlete is educated and they understand how their body works and what it wants they'll make the right decision when it comes to purchasing products. Scott: Really appreciate it. Kevin Chang: Yeah, really appreciate it. We really, really appreciate it. Scott: I also appreciate it very much. How Hammer Nutrition you know of the stewardship of the environment. So you'd go out of your way to, to, you know, have minimal packaging. You got me to get the I got the flask and I have my big bottle of gel. So I don't carry the gels. I read that article. I said, I'm getting though. So I got two bottles of the gel. And the funny thing about the flask was that it opened up in my pocket the first time I used it. And yeah, so I smelled and I was wondering why this dog kept licking my leg. Cause I had delicious huckleberry all over my leg. So Brian Frank: awesome. Scott: the flask, got to tighten that down. Brian Frank: And it's, yeah, that's the single-serving packages is the bane of my existence. You know, that single serving convenience. Right. But anyways, so yeah. Well thank you guys again so much for hosting me and for all your support really appreciate it. And I'm looking forward to chatting with you again. Kevin Chang: Awesome. Yeah, I'm sure that this will just be the beginning of of, of the conversation. So thank you again so much. well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the RaceMob podcast. Check out all of the show notes or find a running buddy online at RaceMob.com Please subscribe to us on apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts and leave us a review until next time. Keep on moving.